


Lady of the Dunes

by ariel2me



Series: Dunk & Egg Universe [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Dunk and Egg
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-03 22:12:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14005917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariel2me/pseuds/ariel2me
Summary: “I don’t know how to talk with highborn ladies,” he confessed as they were pouring. “We both might have been killed in Dorne, on account of what I said to Lady Vaith.” “Lady Vaith was mad,” Egg reminded him, “but you could have been more gallant. Ladies like it when you’re gallant.” (The Sworn Sword)How Dunk and Egg met Lady Vaith, and what Dunk said to her that almost cost them their lives.





	1. Chapter 1

Like other Dornish houses, House Vaith had sent many of its knights and men-at-arms to guard Dorne’s mountain passes, borders and ports during the Great Spring Sickness, to prevent the plague from spreading into Dorne. Dunk had been hired alongside other hedge knights to strengthen the diminished garrison at Vaith after the departure of those knights and men-at-arms.

“I see that you are not a Dornishman, ser. When did you enter Dorne?” Dunk was questioned, before he was taken into service at the castle.

“Quite some time before the mountain passes were closed, Lady Vaith. We had heard nothing about the illness before we crossed into Dorne.”

A hint of a smile passed across the lady’s face. “Lady Vaith is my great-aunt.  _She_  is the Lady of the Red Dunes. I am her heir Lady Cassella. Who is this boy you have with you, ser? Is he a relation of yours?”

“No, my lady. He … he is my squire.”

“He will be housed and fed alongside the other squires in the castle, but we will not pay him a wage the way we are paying you a wage for your service. Your squire is your own responsibility.”

“I understand, my lady.”

“Our captain of the guards will instruct you on your duties.”

**____________________**

The captain of the guards turned out to be Lady Cassella’s cousin. Varlan Vaith was a stern and solemn man when he was performing his duties, but voluble and friendly otherwise. He was very curious and interested in Dunk’s origin, and how Dunk and his squire ended up in Dorne.

 _“I am looking for Tanselle Too-Tall, who is not too tall for me,”_  did not seem like an appropriate answer to give to Ser Varlan’s question about how he and Egg ended up in Dorne, so Dunk merely made some noise about having served a Dornish merchant many years ago, back when he was still squiring for Ser Arlan.

“Are you truly not from the north, Ser Duncan?” questioned Ser Varlan further. “You must have  _some_  giant blood in you, as tall as you are.”

“I never knew my father and mother,” replied Dunk. “They could have been from anywhere. The north is as good a place as any, I suppose.”

The look on Dunk’s face must have alerted Ser Varlan about his reluctance to speak further on the matter. The captain of the guards gave a quick nod, and swiftly changed the subject. “My cousin is named after our great-aunt,” he remarked.  

“Is that not confusing, ser, to have  _two_  Lady Cassellas in the same castle?” Egg piped up.

 _How many Daerons and Aegons are there in your own family, lad?_ thought Dunk, bemused at the question.    

Ser Varlan took the question in his stride. “Our great-aunt has been called Lady Vaith since the day she became the Lady of the Red Dunes, upon her lord father’s death. When people speak of Lady Cassella now, they mean my cousin, not my great-aunt. Though, when my cousin was a child, some of our kinsmen and kinswomen suggested that she should be called Cassella the Small, or Cassella the Younger, to differentiate her from our great-aunt. She did not take too kindly to that suggestion. Even as a young girl, my cousin could be quite vehement in voicing her objection.”

“I would have objected too,” announced Egg, solemnly.

Ser Varlan chuckled. “Egg the Small does sound quite ridiculous.”

 _Though Aegon the Younger does not_ , thought Dunk.

   **____________________**

One morning, as Dunk was busy polishing his sword in the training yard before the start of his patrolling duty, Lady Cassella passed him on her way to the great hall. She was accompanied by three ladies-in-waiting, a septa, and the maester of the castle. She nodded to him and smiled, before continuing on her way. Dunk was too stunned to return her smile, or to make any kind of response at all.

Egg teased him about this later, as he was cleaning Dunk’s boots in the latter’s cramped quarters. It was a small room Dunk had been given, but it gave him and Egg some measure of privacy to speak freely together, for Dunk did not have to share the room with other knights. Egg slept with the other squires in a large and airy hall, though he would often sneak into Dunk’s room at night so he could read his books under the candlelight. 

“You should have smiled back, ser. Or at least nodded,” said Egg. “That was not gallant, what you did. You should  _always_ return a lady’s smile.”

Dunk sighed. “I  _meant_  to smile, I really did. But somehow my lips disobeyed my intention. It did not help that two of her ladies were giggling while they were staring at me.” That made Dunk even more nervous.

Egg seemed to be trying hard to suppress his own giggles. “Perhaps the ladies were wondering if your sword is as big as you are, ser.”

“My sword?” Dunk asked, perplexed. “But they  _saw_  my sword. I was polishing it when they passed me in the training yard. They already know how big it is.”

Egg stared at him with exasperation. “Not  _that_ sword, ser.”

It took Dunk a while to comprehend Egg’s meaning. Finally, almost belatedly, he understood.

 _Oh. The other sword._ Dunk blushed red. “For a boy your age, you know too much for your own good, lad,” he scolded Egg, to hide his embarrassment.

“I’m very advanced for my age. I’ve been told many times before,” replied Egg, sounding quite proud of that fact.  

“ _Too_  advanced,” Dunk shot back.

“Perhaps you like Lady Cassella, ser,” Egg teased. “That’s why you got so shy and tongue-tied, when she smiled at you.”

“Don’t be a fool. She’s a highborn lady. Who am I to like her?” And besides, he was in Dorne to look for Tanselle, not to –

 “Lady Cassella is already betrothed, ser, to Lord Manwoody’s younger brother,” said Egg. “They mean to marry as soon as this plague is over. I heard it from the other squires.”

“Oh,” Dunk said. “I did not know that.” After a long pause, he added, “She doesn’t look like any Dornishwoman I know.”

“You’ve only known one Dornishwoman, ser,” Egg pointed out. “Not all Dornish people look alike,” Egg continued, his voice sounding like a rebuke.

That was true enough. “You’re right, of course,” replied Dunk, looking contrite.

Later on, after he had finished all his squiring duties, Egg said, “Some of the squires said that Lady Cassella is the spitting image of her great-aunt Lady Vaith when  _she_  was young. The same white-blond hair, the same green eyes.”

Dunk was skeptical. “How would those squires know what Lady Vaith looked like when she was young? I doubt their  _fathers_  were even born when Lady Vaith was young.”

Dunk had only seen Lady Vaith a few times, from afar, but it was clear that she was quite elderly. Her great-niece Lady Cassella was the one who usually held court, the one who received petitions and passed judgments, the one who listened to reports from the castle’s officers and councillors.

“Is she ill, do you think?” Dunk wondered.

“Who, ser?”

“Lady Vaith. Lady Cassella the Elder.”

Egg frowned. “Don’t let  _her_  catch you calling her that, ser. That’s not gallant, to call a woman old, or to make any remark about her age at all.”

“I’m not calling her  _old_ ,” Dunk objected. “The Elder, as in she’s older than the other Lady Cassella. Older and more respected, more venerated.”

Egg did not look convinced. He replied to Dunk’s original question regarding Lady Vaith, “She’s not  _ill_ , as such.”

“As such? What does that mean, as such? Either she’s ill, or she’s not.”

“She’s not ill in her body, but she’s ill in her mind.”

“She’s mad, you mean?”

“Well, that’s what the other squires say. Is it really an illness, ser, if you’re not right in your mind?”

The squires’ hall seemed to be a hotbed for gossips and rumors, thought Dunk, though sometimes it was also a source of valuable information, no doubt.

“Madness is an illness too,” Dunk replied. “The sufferers could not help it, just like people could not help having a bad belly or getting the fever.”

Egg was not really listening. He seemed to have something else occupying his thoughts.

“Speak up, lad. What’s on your mind?”

Egg hesitated, before saying, “I know who she is, ser.”

“Well, of course you do. She’s Lady Vaith, the Lady of the Red Dunes.”

“I mean, I know who she  _was_ , a long time ago, before she became the Lady of the Red Dunes. She was one of King Aegon the Unworthy’s mistresses. At least, she was  _called_  his mistress in the history books I’ve read and the stories I’ve heard, but I think a different word would have been more accurate.”

 _That_  King Aegon’s house words should have been,  _‘Wash Her and Bring Her to My Bed,’_  Ser Arlan once remarked, as Dunk recalled.

“He chucked her after he grew tired of her, I suppose?” asked Dunk.

 “It was worse than that, ser,” Egg said. “She was one of the hostages King Daeron – the first King Daeron, I mean, not my grandfather – took after the Submission of Sunspear. Aegon the Unworthy was just a prince then, Prince Aegon. He kept Lady Vaith – she was Lady Cassella then – as a hostage in his own bedchamber, not imprisoned with the other Dornish hostages. Later, when the Dornish people revolted and King Daeron was killed, the hostages were all supposed to be killed in return. Prince Aegon banished her from his bedchamber and returned her to be with the other hostages.”

“But she‘s alive now, so obviously she was not killed like the other hostages.”

“None of the hostages were killed, ser. King Baelor pardoned them all, and escorted them back to Dorne himself. But Prince Aegon did not know that King Baelor was going to do those things, when he returned Lady Cassella to be with the other hostages. He thought she was going to be killed, and he did it anyway. He did not even try to petition the king to spare her life, or to protect her in any way, after … after he had made use of her in his bedchamber. That was the kind of man my great-grandfather was.”

Dunk was appalled. “Were you named after this Aegon, after your great-grandfather?”

“No, ser!” exclaimed Egg. “My father hated his grandsire. I was named after the Conqueror, the first Aegon.”

“Was he the only Aegon who was not so terrible?”

“I’m not so bad myself, am I, ser?”

“I mean of the Aegons who were kings.”

“The second Aegon fed his sister to the dragon, so he was quite terrible himself. The third Aegon was a pitiful boy who was forced to watch his mother being eaten by a dragon, and he grew to be a sad and melancholy king. If _I_  had to suffer what  _he_  suffered, no doubt I would turn out the same way too, ser. The fourth Aegon, well, that was my great-grandfather, and we both know what kind of man  _he_  was.”

“Maybe the fifth Aegon will be a better king,” said Dunk.

“Maybe my cousin Valarr will name his son Aegon, and  _he_  will be the fifth Aegon,” Egg replied.

**____________________**

The Prince of Dorne summoned the ruling lords and ladies of all the Dornish houses to Sunspear, to confer about additional measures and precautions that must be taken to prevent the spread of the Great Spring Sickness into Dorne. Lady Cassella made the journey to Sunspear on behalf of her great-aunt.  

 _This_  Prince of Dorne was the son of Maron Martell and Daenerys Targaryen, related to Egg through both his paternal grandmother and his paternal grandfather. “It’s a good thing Lady Cassella did not command you to go with her to Sunspear, ser,” Egg said.  

“Why would she take a hedge knight as one of her personal guards? And even if she  _had_  commanded me to accompany her to Sunspear,  _you_  would not be going with us.”

Egg looked hurt. “You would leave me here, ser? On my own?”

“Hardly on your own, lad. You seem to have made a great many friends among the squires. And you have charmed and impressed even Ser Varlan. If you were not already my squire, he would have taken you as his squire in a shot, he told me.”

Egg crossed his arms. “Perhaps you would prefer that, ser. Perhaps you would prefer to be rid of me altogether, the pesky boy who has been the bane of your existence since Ashford.”

Dunk crossed his own arms, mirroring Egg’s stance. “And perhaps  _you_  would prefer to serve a more gallant and courtly knight like Ser Varlan, a  _highborn_  knight, not someone like me,” he retorted.

 Egg uncrossed his arms. He looked up to gaze earnestly at Dunk’s eyes. “There were plenty of highborn, gallant and courtly knights at Ashford, ser, but  _you_  were the only one who stood up to protect the weak and the innocent, like a true knight must.”     

**____________________**

Lady Vaith finally came out of seclusion during her great-niece’s absence, to hear petitions and to hold court. She did not _seem_  mad, Dunk thought. She looked sad, and mournful beyond measure, but she did not look mad to Dunk, at least not in the way that he was familiar with. She was old, of course, seventy at least, if not more, guessed Dunk. Her hair was completely white, with no trace of the blond left at all. Her eyes, though; they shone as brightly as Lady Cassella’s eyes.  

And she seemed alert enough. She heard and seemed to fully understand what was being said by the petitioners, and she took time to confer with her councillors, but when she finally declared her judgment, she did not look as if she was merely parroting what her councillors had told her to say. Dunk did not know enough about the intricacies of land grants to assess the decision she had made, but Egg nodded and whispered, “That’s what my grandfather would have done as well.”

“Lady Vaith does not seem mad to me,” Dunk said to Egg later, in his room.

“She’s not mad  _all_  the time, the other squires say.”

“She’s only mad  _some_  of the time?”

Egg nodded. “When something distresses her and reminds her of something terrible from the past that she does not want to remember. And they say she is absolutely mad about one thing in particular.”

“What’s that?”

“She believes she’s my great-grandfather’s one true love, and one day, one day very soon, he would come for her, to take her back to King’s Landing, so they could be together again.”

Maybe it  _wasn’t_  madness, thought Dunk. Maybe it was true, maybe he  _did_  promise her he would come for her one day. Maybe he  _did_  whisper sweet words in her ear telling her she was the only woman he would ever love and promising her that they would be together again someday, just before he sent her away to die. Aegon the Unworthy did not seem like a man who would hesitate to tell those lies to a woman.

“She  _believed_  that, you mean, while Aegon the Unworthy was still alive?” Dunk asked.

“No, ser. She still believes it now.”


	2. Chapter 2

“My lady, shall we halt for today? It will be nightfall soon, and there is an inn not far from here, spacious enough to accommodate all the members of our party.”

 _We press on_ , Cassella was tempted to insist, but she knew that was a foolish notion. Even if they arrived in Sunspear earlier than planned, they could not leave before the talks were concluded. “I hope Lord Yronwood will not insist on voicing his sham objection to every single proposal Prince Marys brings to the table, or we could be held up in Sunspear for a  _very_  long time,” Cassella remarked, with some asperity, after she was settled in the largest room in the inn. A true disagreement with an alternative course of action suggested was one thing, but all of Yoren Yronwood’s objections seemed explicitly designed solely for the purpose of trying to expose the youthfulness and inexperience of this relatively new Prince of Dorne, not for the purpose of suggesting any real solution to a problem.

Her maid was helping Cassella undress. “Are you worried about Lady Vaith, my lady, if you are absent from the castle for too long?” Moirra asked her mistress.

The girl saw  _far_  too much, thought Cassella, as she donned a robe for the night. She had not said a single word about her great-aunt since leaving Vaith, and yet …

“Lady Vaith will be well enough,” she replied firmly. “But  _we_  will not be, if we do not catch as much sleep as we could, before the long journey ahead.”

Sleep came swiftly for her bedmaid, but not for Cassella. Was her great-aunt asleep, Cassella wondered, or was she still wide awake, staring out her window into the river Vaith, trying to decide which of the two streams that made up the river would carry her to  _his_  side the fastest?

 _He did not love you! He never loved you. He made use of you, and then he threw you away as if you were nothing, when you are not nothing, when you are worth more than a hundred of him, a thousand! You should be raging at him, you should be swearing vengeance against him and his descendants, you should be hating him and despising him with every bone in your body._ Years ago, Cassella had shouted all those words and more to her great-aunt, to the woman in whose honor she had been named.

Great-Aunt Ella had not reacted the way Cassella expected. She merely smiled her sad, faraway smile and said, “You would not understand, child.” But that same night, she had screamed and cried and howled for hours and hours on end, and Cassella’s grandmother was the only one who could calm her, who could soothe her to sleep.

Like Great-Aunt Ella, Cassella’s grandmother had also been one of the hostages King Daeron the First had taken after the Submission of Sunspear. The eldest daughter of Lord Gargalen of Salt Shore, Trena Gargalen was not the heir to a ruling lord or lady of Dorne, unlike the other thirteen hostages. Her older brother was still recovering from a wound he had taken in battle, and it was feared that he would not survive the journey to King’s Landing. King Daeron, out of pragmatism rather than mercy (because a living hostage was certainly more valuable than a dead one) had taken Lord Gargalen’s second eldest child as his hostage instead. Trena was already betrothed to Cassella’s grandfather at the time, so Vyman Vaith had the dubious distinction of losing both his sister and his betrothed at the same time.

King Daeron had entrusted the task of escorting the hostages to King’s Landing to the hands of his cousin Prince Aegon, while he continued the ultimately fruitless task of securing Dorne under his rule. Prince Aegon had taken one look at Trena Gargalen with her black hair, black eyes and olive complexion, and contemptuously scorned her for looking too Dornish, looking too much like his family’s sworn enemy. Cassella Vaith, on the other hand, had caught his eyes from the start. “You, my lady, do not look Dornish at all. You could pass for a fair maiden from the Reach. You are more comely than  _any_  maiden from the Reach, I’d wager,” he had said.

“But surely,” the other Cassella remarked, the first time she heard the story from her grandmother, “he had spent enough time making war on the Dornish people to know that there is no such thing as looking  _too_  Dornish or not Dornish  _enough_.”

“He was never the sharpest knife in the drawer,” replied Cassella’s grandmother, caustically. “He always saw only what he wanted to see.”

“But Great-Aunt Ella was not fooled by his compliments, surely?” Cassella had asked.

Her grandmother had shot her a stern glare. “Do not be one of thosepeople, Cass. Those who blamed her for what transpired, who accused her of whoring herself to the enemy. As if she had a choice, any choice at all. She was a  _hostage_. If he wanted her to be his  _mistress_ , as  _he_  called it, what she wanted mattered not in the least. Yes, we were highborn hostages, and we were treated in a more refined manner than lowborn hostages would have been treated. We were not imprisoned in a cold, dark dungeon until afterKing Daeron was killed. The rooms we were confined in looked fitting for the sons and daughters of highborn lords and ladies, to be sure, and there were even servants to wait on us. But those servants were also  _spies_ , who reported on our every move, every conversation and every deed, every whisper and every unguarded expression. Highborn or not, we were still hostages, and there were still armed guards at every door keeping us in confinement.”

“But at least we had each other, the thirteen of us,” Cassella’s grandmother had continued. “Your great-aunt, on the contrary, was kept isolated in the prince’s bedchamber. She was only allowed to visit us very rarely, always accompanied by a lady-in-waiting, who reported on every detail of her conversation with the other hostages to Prince Aegon and to Prince Aegon’s father Prince Viserys. And certainly she was not allowed any unchaperoned contact with members of court other than Prince Aegon himself. Imagine what it was like for your great-aunt, to be separated not just from her home and her family, but also from her fellow hostages from Dorne. Starved for human contact and affection, isolated from everything and everyone she knew and loved, and here was this prince who made a great show of pretense that he was her savior rather than her captor, who kept making the excuse,  _‘My father, my father, he is the cause of it all. If not for my father, I could love you openly and without shame. If not for my father, you would be free to move around the castle as a respected member of court. If not for my father, you would be able to mix freely with your fellow Dornishmen and Dornishwomen. If not for my father, everything would be roses and sunshine._ ”

“Surely she did not believe him?”

“She  _needed_  to believe him, to survive her ordeal. If you are dying of thirst in the desert, and someone comes along offering you water, would you refuse it?”

“I certainly would, if that someone was the one who dragged me into the desert in the first place,” Cassella had replied at the time, with all the rigid certainty and self-righteousness of a fourteen-year-old who had never been separated from her family, who had never been kept isolated from everything and everyone she loved.

“Seeing things the way she saw it was the only way she could survive what happened. Believing his lies was the only way she would not want to harm herself, to throw herself from atop the highest tower. She needed to believe those lies for her own sake, not for  _his_  sake. Not to clear his name, or to excuse or justify what he did, but to save  _herself._  Who are we to judge her, when we have not had to endure what she endured? What good would  _“trying to open her eyes to the truth”_ do, if it is done for our own sake, to satisfy our need for justice or reprisal or retribution, rather than for  _her_  sake, for  _her_  well-being?”

Chastened, Cassella had stopped trying to open her great-aunt’s eyes to the truth. When her grandmother was still alive,  _she_  was the only one who could soothe Lady Vaith on her hardest nights and most distressed days. Trena Gargalen passed away three years ago after a stroke. Her husband had predeceased her many years before, and she had also outlived Cassella’s father, her elder son. Her younger son, and  _his_  son Varlan, were both too consumed with fury towards Aegon the Unworthy to be of any comfort to Lady Vaith. Cassella’s mother had always been afraid of her husband’s aunt, and tried to keep her distance from the old lady as much as possible. All of which left Cassella as the only one who could take over her grandmother’s role, a role she felt completely inadequate to fill. And now with her absence from the castle, which could be a prolonged one, only the gods knew –  

Moirra opened her eyes, after hearing her mistress tossing and turning in bed for the umpteenth time. “Can’t you sleep, my lady?” she asked.

“I’ve never been able to fall asleep easily on a strange bed,” said Cassella, her voice muffled by the pillow she had placed over her face, frustrated with her inability to fall asleep.    

“Perhaps Ser Marcus will be at Sunspear,” Moirra said, in an attempt to cheer her mistress.  

Marcus Manwoody was Cassella’s betrothed. “I doubt it. Lord Manwoody would have left his brother in Kingsgrave as the castellan during his absence.”

“He must really love you. Ser Marcus, I mean. Here he is, his brother’s most trusted and influential advisor, everyone says, and yet he could not wait to wed you.  _A day feels like a year_ , I recalled him saying, my lady.”

Pushing away the pillow from her face, Cassella said, with raised eyebrows and a knowing smile, “He may be his brother’s most trusted advisor, but he is no longer his brother’s heir, and not likely to ever be again. Lord Manwoody has been blessed with three children already, and his wife is pregnant with their fourth. Marriage to the future Lady of the Red Dunes is a very enticing prospect for a man in Ser Marcus’ position, I have no doubt.”  

Moirra seemed taken aback. “But he seems so fond of you! I still remember the poems he sent you in his letters, and the one he recited to you the last time he visited Vaith. And when you were dancing with him at Sunspear, during the feast celebrating the twentieth anniversary of Prince Maron’s and Princess Daenerys’ marriage, the two of you looked as happy as the celebrated couple themselves. Are you … are you not fond of him, my lady?”

“I am fond of him, to be sure, as he is of me. But people in our positions do not wed merely out of fondness, or even love. Other things must be taken into consideration.”

Namely, the valuable alliance with House Manwoody, and the fact that Ser Marcus was not just skilled enough in arms to lead an army into battle, but also confident enough in his own manhood not to resent being the consort to a ruling lady, which would require a great deal of playing second fiddle and standing back in the shadow.

Cassella’s great-aunt had never married, and the previous Lady of the Red Dunes had ruled more than a hundred years ago, so Marcus Manwoody would be the first male consort in Vaith in a long while. She could not help but wonder how he would get along with her cousin Varlan, for one thing, after their wedding, once he had made his home in Vaith. Her cousin had been  _more_  than just fond of Cassella when they were younger, though Cassella herself had always loved him like a brother, and  _only_  like a brother.      

As if intuiting that her mistress’ thought was on Varlan Vaith at the moment, Moirra said, “Ser Varlan has taken a shine to that tall knight from the north.”

“Ser Duncan is not really from the north. My cousin only thinks that because he believes it is impossible for anyone to be _that_  tall without having a few drops of giant’s blood in him.”

“He’s not just tall, though. He is big, and solidly-built as well.”

“Are you sweet on him, Moirra?”

Moirra did not blush, and she did not try to look away. “No, my lady,” she answered simply.  “I … I do not think I’ll ever be sweet on  _any_  man.”

Cassella nodded. She had guessed this already.

“Baella said Ser Duncan is looking for a Dornish girl,” Moirra continued. “Or a Dornish young woman, rather. A puppeteer.”  

“Ser Duncan told her this?” Baella was one of the serving girls in the castle, and someone Moirra was sweet on, Cassella had observed.  

“No, not Ser Duncan himself. His squire, the funny little lad with the shaven head, he’s the one who was asking Baella about puppet shows and puppeteers. Perhaps Ser Duncan is looking for his lost love. And he comes all the way to Dorne to find her. It sounds so romantic, don’t you think, my lady?”

 _It depends,_  thought Cassella,  _on whether or not she wants to be found._  


End file.
